Shadows of the Workhouse (29 page)
Read Shadows of the Workhouse Online
Authors: Jennifer Worth
I mentioned the incident over lunch at Nonnatus House, with great indignation.
Sister Julienne tried to calm me down. “We meet a lot of that sort of thing among the older people of Poplar. They are deeply suspicious of anyone from the next area of the Docklands, even the next street, sometimes. If we believed everything they tell us, we would believe everyone to be a murderer and villain, or a wife-beater and granny-basher. I cannot be quite sure, but I believe Mr Collett had two sons who died in the First World War. If this is the case, our deepest sympathy is due to him.” She smiled at me quietly, and said no more.
The next day, a bottle of orange juice was standing on Mr Collett’s table. Bless him, I thought, he must have made a special shopping trip on my account. I wanted to ask him about his sons, but decided it would be better not to. He could tell me if he so wished. I asked him to tell me more about his early life in Croydon, and about his family.
“It was a good life for children. Back then Croydon was a small place in the countryside. There were fields and farmhouses, and streams where the children played. We were poor, but not as poor as many, and my mother was always a good manager. She could make a meal out of a bone, she could, and my father kept an allotment, so we always had fresh vegetables. But it all came to a tragic end.” He paused, cut off another chunk of tobacco, and filled his pipe.
I bandaged up his first leg, and started the second. “What happened?” I asked.
“My father died. The scaffolding on the building where he was working collapsed. Five men were killed. It was due to slipshod workmanship on the part of the scaffold-builders. There was no compensation for the wives and children of the dead men. My mother could not pay the rent, and we had to get out of the house. It was a nice house,” he added, reflectively, and sucked his pipe. Clouds of smoke filled the room.
“I don’t rightly remember where we moved to, but it was smaller and cheaper. We kept on moving to smaller and smaller places. I was thirteen, and the eldest of the children. I left school at once, and tried to get work, but in 1890 there was no work.” He told me how he had tramped for miles trying to find anything: on the land, on building sites, with horses, on the railways. But there was nothing. “The only job I could get was in the yard where my father used to break stones in the bad weather. But it was piecework, and I wasn’t really old enough or strong enough to break the granite boulders. I hardly got a thing for a day’s hard labour. I remember my mother cried when she saw me at the end of the day. She said, ‘You are not going to do this, my son. I’m not going to have you die as well.’ The men were rough, you know, really rough, and they were all swinging fifteen-pound sledgehammers. Most of them were drunk. You can imagine the accident if a lad of thirteen had been hit instead of a stone.”
I undid the second bandage. “So what did the family do?” I asked.
“We came up to London. I don’t know why; perhaps my mother was told there was more chance of work for her, or for me. We came here, to Alberta Buildings. I can still see the old flat from here – that one on the fifth floor, second from the end, by the stairway. It was just one room, like this one, but with no water or lavatory, of course. I think there was gaslight, when we could afford to use it. It was cheap, but even at three-and-sixpence a week my mother had to work day and night to keep a roof over our heads. From the day my father died, my mother never stopped working.” With the childhood memories flooding back to him, Mr Collett described how his mother did cleaning by day, portering, and took in washing and ironing. There were good wash-houses at Alberta Buildings in those days, he said. On top of that she took in mending for the second-hand-clothes dealers, did umbrella stitching in the winter and parasol-making in summer.
He went on to tell me that she had applied to the Poor Board for relief, but was told she was not of the Parish, and to go back where she came from. As a special concession, the chairman had offered to take three of her children, saying that she would then be relieved of the burden of having to feed them, and would have only five children left. The three children would be put in the workhouse. When his mother refused, they had called her ungrateful and improvident, and told her that she need not trouble herself to come back to them, because the offer would not be repeated. They sent her away, saying she would have to manage as best she could.
“She did manage, but I don’t know how. She kept a roof over our heads, and provided enough food to keep us from starving. But we seldom had a fire, even in the coldest weather. We never had shoes, and our clothes were thin, and mostly in rags. All the families around us were just as poor, and it was made far worse by drunkenness. Most of the men drank, and that meant a lot of violence in some of the homes. Many women were in such despair they drowned themselves. Every week the cry would go up: ‘A body in the Cuts,’ and it was always a woman. You can imagine how the children felt . . . always scared their mother might be next . . .”
He sat thinking for a while, puffing his pipe, then chuckled. “It’s a funny thing, you know, but children can accept almost anything when they feel loved and secure. In spite of being cold and hungry, my brothers and sisters were always laughing, always playing out in the court, always inventing new games. I never heard any of them complain. But I was different. I was thirteen when my father died; I remembered the old life and hated our new one. I hated seeing my dear mother working eighteen or twenty hours a day for a pittance. She would sit late into the night, sewing shirts by candlelight, in a freezing room, with no food inside her, all for sixpence. I resented the injustice of it. Of course, I was out each day looking for work, but times were hard and the best I could find were odd jobs, like holding a horse, or running errands, or sweeping out a yard.
“I tried to get work in the docks. You would think there was plenty of work in London’s Docklands, wouldn’t you? Well, there was, but there were thousands and thousands of men after the same work. I reckon there were ten men for every job – no chance for a young boy like me.”
In those days such jobs as there were went mostly to the boys whose fathers and grandfathers had been dockers, Mr Collett explained. There were frightening scenes at the dock gates: hundreds of half-starved labourers, clad in rags, crazed and desperate, fighting for the chance of a few hours’ work. Perhaps fifty would be taken on for the day while five hundred would be turned away to idle their time away in the streets. No wonder men were violent.
“At low tide there was always scavenging to be done in the mud. Some lads found things of value, but I never did. The best thing I found was bits of coal, washed off the barges, and drift-wood. At least that made a fire for the evening.
“The worst thing was the way the gentry was so suspicious all the time. I was looking for honest work, but I was called “ragamuffin”, “varmin”, “lout”, “thieving dog”. Just because I was thin and ill-clothed and looked hungry, they assumed I was a thief.”
Mr Collett’s mouth tightened. His proud face stiffened at the memory of the insults. I had finished his second leg and sat back on my heels looking up at him, thinking that the accumulated experience of old age was much more interesting than the chatter of the young.
I had a glass of orange juice, whilst he drank a cup of tea. It was a good compromise, because he gave me a glass, which was dusty, but not filthy.
I was enjoying his company and conversation and didn’t want to leave him, as he seemed so happy. On impulse I said: “I must go now, but it’s my evening off tonight. Can I come and have a glass of sherry with you, and you can continue your stories?”
The joy on his face answered my question. “Can you come, my maiden? Can you come? I’ll say you can come, and a thousand times welcome.”
YOUNG JOE
Cycling back to Nonnatus House, I had misgivings about my quixotic suggestion of returning that evening. Medical people are warned about the difficulties that can develop when friendships with patients are formed. It is not something that is forbidden, but it is discouraged, and for very good reasons. So, after lunch, I spoke to Sister Julienne in private. She didn’t look disapproving, or even particularly concerned.
“Well, having said you will go this evening, you cannot possibly fail him. That would be needlessly cruel. I think he is a lonely old gentleman and your visit will give him pleasure. Enjoy yourself. He is a very interesting old man, I have found.”
With Sister Julienne’s blessing, my misgivings vanished, and I cycled round to Alberta Buildings at about 8 p.m. with a light heart.
Mr Collett was so obviously overjoyed to see me that he seemed nervous. He had gone to some trouble, and put on a clean shirt and waistcoat and a pair of highly polished boots. Like all old soldiers, he had never got out of the habit of buffing and rubbing his boots to perfection and the whole room smelled strongly of boot polish. The dirty plates and mugs and newspapers had been removed from the table, and two fine crystal glasses and half a bottle of sherry had been put out in readiness. The fire burned brightly, casting flickering shadows over the dingy walls.
He said, “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come, but here you are.”
He walked slowly and carefully over to his chair. “It’s good to have you here. Sit down. It’s so nice to see you.”
I was overwhelmed and a bit embarrassed by all this, and sat down awkwardly, not knowing quite what to say.
“You’ve come. You are here,” he repeated. “Ah, this is so lovely.” Obviously I had to say something. “Yes, I’ve come. Of course I have. I’m not going to run away, so let’s have a glass of sherry, and we can talk about old times.”
He laughed with delight, went over to the table and lifted the bottle. He felt around for the glasses and I moved to help him, but he said, “No, no, I can do it. I have to all the time, you know.”
He poured out two glasses. His hands shook a little and he spilled a considerable quantity on the table, of which he was unaware. I realised that spilled food and liquid would probably account for much of the smell in the room. The rest was likely to be an uncleaned lavatory, unwashed clothes and the bugs that infested Alberta Buildings. I wondered if he had a home help.
But I wasn’t going to think about that sort of thing. If he was unaware of, and quite content with his dirt, why should I criticise? Sister Julienne had told me to enjoy myself, and that I was going to do.
I took a sip of the sherry, and said, “Lovely. This is a cosy room, and you know how to make a nice fire. You were telling me about your childhood. I’d love to hear more.”
He settled down comfortably in his wooden chair, and put his feet on the stool (ulcerated legs have to be kept raised as much as possible). He pulled out his shag and his penknife, and started cutting it up. I inhaled a sniff of the strong tobacco. He took a sip of his sherry.
“This is luxury. When I was young I would never have dreamed of such luxury. A fire every day! A warm bed at night! Enough food to eat . . . A welfare state that pays my rent because I am too old to work, and pays me a pension of ten shillings and sixpence a week, to buy all that I need, including a bottle of sherry when I want it. This is luxury my poor, dear mother never knew in all her life.”
He was cutting up his shag slowly and carefully, holding it in the palm of his left hand and drawing the knife downwards. It looked alarming, as though he was going to cut his hand, because the tobacco was clearly tough and needed a lot of pressure. But from long practice he knew just when to ease the pressure, and he never cut himself. He worked by feel, not by sight. He slowly unravelled strands of the villainous-looking stuff with which he filled the bowl of his pipe. Next, he took a wooden spill, about eight inches long, from a pot at his side and stuck it into the fire. It burned up brightly, the flame leaping high into the air. He brought it towards him, sucking hard on the pipe, and the flame dipped downwards into the tobacco. He sucked and puffed contentedly, and smoke filled the air. Then he blew the flame out, and returned the half-burned spill to the pot, in much the same way that my grandfather used to do.
“Sheer luxury,” he said, smiling contentedly. “I was telling you about our first years in Poplar, after my father died; how my poor mother had to work day and night; and how I couldn’t find work, except odd jobs, to help her. Well, there was one job I got that was good fun for a lad who’s looking for adventure.
“I was down the Blackwall Steps, waiting for the tide to go out, so that I could go scavenging. A man came along and said to me: ‘Here, boy, can you cook a stew?’
“‘Yes, sir,’ I said (I would have said ‘yes’ to anything).
“‘ Can you skin a rabbit?’
“‘Yes, sir.’
“‘Bone a fish?’
“‘Yessir.’
“‘Make tea and cocoa?’
“‘Yessir.
“‘Clean a wick and fill a lamp?’
“‘Yessir.’
“‘You’re the boy I want. My cabin boy’s done a bunk. Can you sail today?’
“‘Anywhere, sir.’
“‘Be here at high tide. The
British Lion
’s the barge you want. A florin a week all found.’
British Lion
’s the barge you want. A florin a week all found.’
“It was all so quick I hadn’t time to draw breath. I raced back to Alberta Buildings, round to the washhouse where my mother was toiling away, and told her I had been hired as cabin boy on a Thames barge. My mother didn’t look as thrilled as I had expected. In fact, she was dead against it. We had words, and I shouted at her: ‘Look, I’m off, whatever you say, and I’ll come back a rich man. You’ll see.’
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